Thursday, 27 December 2012

If I already showed you how I identify infantry units, you can expect for sure that I'm doing the same with vehicles:

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Bulky and dirty

I use the same system, but exchanging the circle for a square symbol, which represents armoured units.

Yeah, it's in the sponsons

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Not very original, but effective

﻿The essence is just the same, with little variations, due to the nature of an armoured unit. The Regimental number goes above and then you can see the "Company" and "Platoon" numbers. Well, talking about armoured cavalry and artillery units you should use terms as Squadron, Group, Battery... but Warhammer rules don't make that distinction, so I dont't want to mess you up.

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Plain scheme, I didnt want camouflage patterns

﻿You can see the designation number for the tank itself on the turret, being coherent with the marks on the sponsons. The above Leman Russ Tank is the Third Vehicle belonging to the First "Platoon" of the Second Company.

And so it works for any other vehicle:

On these numbers you can deduct that the 4th Company is an Artillery one

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First "Platoon" is formed up with Basilisks, the Second one with Griffons

﻿I've been encouraged to use decals for the numbers. I should have done so, but I didn't have enough numbers that size, so I finally did them freehand (can you call "freehand" painting numbers? Well, whatever).

I did use decals (and painted on them to unificate colours) on other models:

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Too clean, too clean!

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Besides overpainting the decals, I greenstuffed the guy, the original miniature was entirely bald

I also did the same here with the Imperial Eagles. They're decals which I painted brown:

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Again, the same identification system

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I ran out of decals, so I had to figure out an impact on the front of the hull

Monday, 24 December 2012

I told you I was going to talk aboul personalizing armies. In this case, my Imperial Guard.

It looks that gaming nowadays has become a challenge to put up together the most uberstrong minis, never mind if they're absolutely unrelated each other or whatever, just to see "who's the best general" or "who plays better than others". I don't get it, but I guess it's fine if you find it fun. But for those of us who come from the old school concept, gaming was just a matter of fun. Our better aim was never winning a game, but playing and enjoying it. So all the point was (an still is) creating. Creating a story, building up an army and giving it its own personality.

So this is what I tried with my minis. Do you remember the old way of identifying Imperial Guard units, with coloured circles?

This image's copyright belongs to Games Workshop, etc.

For my army I decided to go on that concept, but making it a little bit more military, i.e., not sticking all these colours on camouflage fatigues ;). This is what I ended up working with:

Right shoulder pad

Left shoulder pad

On one shoulder, the pad displays the Regimental number (XVII in this case) and the Company number (6)

The other shoulder pad displays the Platoon and Squad numbers, 2 and 4 in this case. So, a Guardsman showing these symbols could be easily identified as belonging to the XVIIth Regiment, 6th Company, 2nd Platoon, 4th Squad.

One thing that everybody seems to avoid in wargames minis is the aspect of making an army look... well, military. And that means details. It's not enough just painting your figures in camo pattern to make it appear like anything else that a bunch of partisans. You need to make it look credible. So you need to make sure that all those tiny details show up to make it real. One aspect is the organic adscription to a determined unit. The other is about ranks. Soldiers need to identify each other with a simple glimpse, and that is provided with current uniforms. In order to bring this down to my minis, I had to design a rank emblems system.

These are my own personal Imperial Guard ranks:

Colonel

Lt. Col

Major

Captain

Lieutenant

Second Lieutenant

Sergeant Major

Master Sergeant

Staff Sergeant

Sergeant

Corporal

Guardsman

So yes, each mini in my army has any of these distinctive emblems:

Guardsman and Corporal. 3rd Platoon, 2nd Squad

Sergeant of that Squad and Lieutenant of the 3rd Platoon. Note that the scheme for the Officer is up and down, instead of left and right.

Captain of the 6th Company. Both shoulder pads are the same

Another final example:

Guardsman, 6th Company...

3rd Platoon, 1st Squad

It's not complicated. As a matter of fact it looks quite intuitive, I hope. It certainly works for me and helps to the general lookings of my Imperial Guard. These small details make the minis unique and are easy to replicate in any uniform pattern with the proper colours.

That's all for today. Merry Christmas again and let me know if you find this useful or if you think I'm going nuts, hehe.

Wednesday, 19 December 2012

Today I'm showing you an Imperial Guard army, or at least part of it. I have particular obsession with details. I believe that details make the difference. You can have a fine army, but making it personal is what gives it the point, it becomes truly unique. That's what I tried here. Let's go for it:

Well, WTF is this? you're wandering. Let me explain...

Desert pattern camouflage, but not absolutely modern, not pixel pattern, not MARPAT neither ACU (though I used it for... no, that's for another day). I liked the idea of showing not just a bunch of minis, but having my own little diorama for the HQ Squad. Let's see them in detail:

Yeah, the longcoat is quite useful in the desert

The Captain is a Commissar Yarrick figure. I severed the right arm -again (no pun intended) and painted it with these colours. The blue is pretty distinctive and I used it as the Regimental colour. The other guy originally belonged to the Praetorian Command Squad blister, but I arranged him into my army with some greenstuff and a good cutter ;)

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Pretty old mini, new look

﻿The standard bearer is from RT old times. The banner itself is made of plastic, I don't remember where I took it from.

Freehand insanity

As I was going crazy on this Celtic theme, I decided to do something funny. I recalled the Gaunt Ghosts novels and the morale inspiring music of bagpipes. This came up into my mind:

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Hark when the night is falling...

﻿It's a lot of greenstuff and little thing else

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... Hear, hear, the pipes are calling loudly...

﻿I didn't intend to use this mini in the game, but the Codex allows you to get a bodyguard, so I guess it suits fine in that role. Again, I think of the character of Brin Milo in the Gaunt Ghosts novels.

New things: I wanted something different for the Master of the Ordnance option, as I thought that the current figure of a single guy with a radio wasn't enough.

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Please come into my office

﻿Of course this doesn't properly represent an Artillery Command Post, but I think it works better that the radio guy.

Scratch built with pieces from everywhere

Of course it's not a Mac. This is Warhammer

The map is just a little piece of paper. I guess I had steady hand that day, I wasn't abusing of coffee.

Okay, dude, so where's my car?

Acting only as a part of the diorama and nothing else, I got these two guys, the stretchers:

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We're superfluous, but look good here

﻿Ready to get the injured men safe. Here you can see them with the medic (which has its usefulness in the game). I thought it was kinda logic that the medic had somebody with him to help.

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Ooops, my bad, burned saturated colours in the photo, sorry

For the command vehicle I wanted something different to the tipical Chimera APC we have always seen. It's made from pieces of toys, mostly TENTE blocks (A Spanish alternative to LEGO back in the '80s. Finer pieces that allow real wonders, believe me)﻿

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Completely different, but slightly Imperial looking

﻿With some bits to warhammerize it:

Finally, this is the result:

That's how my insanity took control over my hands and ended up having a diorama. Next day I'll talk about this army and different ways to personalize units. I hope this HQ Squad is promising and you come back!